Apr 25 2009
P & the GWP
Here’s the thing about writing — it surely beats the hell out of digging ditches, but it’s with you ALL the time. No time is really down time, or off time, because the story always needs to be finished, and you should (or you think you should) always be writing it. Always. Playing with family, watching TV, eating dinner, visiting friends…it is the itch that will not go away, even if you scratch at it with industrial-grade sandpaper embedded with diamonds.
There’s a lot of guilt involved, especially on bad days when fear of the great white page, or terror at the idea of suckiness, partner up with procrastination to overwhelm you (this blog post means they’re winning). There’s also a lot of time committed for minimum to no gain. Like a running back plowing into a stacked line all day long for one measly yard. Today, up at 4:00 AM on a Saturday, I may work for 5 hours to get two pages that down the line will likely be cut or totally altered beyond recognition. But a paycheck awaits (which is rare, I know), and it does beat digging ditches (though I’ve never done that before), and today, right now in fact, I’m gonna open up a can of whoop-ass on those twin devils Procrastination and the Great White Page (“Evil, I know thy name!”). Wish me luck.
Sounds a lot like the practice of law. Good luck.
God, I wish I could afford diamond-encrusted sandpaper.
I’ve had this thought many times, up to and including the logical conclusion that there is literally no injury short of a coma that could keep us from writing. Ditch digger breaks a leg, gets a ditch vacation. As long as the writer is of sound mind, however, the page awaits. Even if he’s trapped in solitary with little more than a dirt floor and a stick.
A blessing and a curse, I say. Some days one way more than the other.
I see a pattern: sounds like academia. Good luck.
always,
mom